The Board of Trustees File

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What follows is a brief synopsis of what our investigation at the Paine Project has revealed on the background, involvement and participation of individual Paine College Board of Trustees members in the affairs of the Board. Our investigation is necessarily limited to what can be publicly determined about their occupations and biographies as no information is available about them on the Paine College website.

Rev. Autry is a United Methodist higher education minister whose role is to make grants and provide other support to the colleges that the United Methodist Church supports in Georgia. She is the Executive Director of the United Methodist Commission Higher Education & Campus Ministry and in that role sits on the Board of several colleges. She has a limited corporate, business and legal background. Primarily she is a religion and education leader. Reportedly has a good sense of right and wrong and is not happy with what she sees in the Bradley administration.

Attorney Bouknight is a relatively new member of the Board. Much is not known about her except that she is an attorney practicing in Flint, Michigan. It is believed that she was once the Executive Director of a union for Flint Michigan teachers called United Teachers of Flint. What she thinks of the Bradley administration is unknown.

Metro Atlanta semi-retired lawyer. 1969 graduate of Paine College. National Alumni President. Has had clashes with Dr. Bradley and his supporters on the Board even though they selected her as the National Alumni President reportedly in violation of the Alumni Assoc. by-laws. Reportedly upset over Board policies to keep important information out of the hands of board members. However, our information is that she is mostly a Bradley sympathizer and is out of sync with the wishes of the National Alumni Association.

Bishop for the CME church over the state of Georgia and the country of Haiti. Enables and supports the Bradley administration in every way possible. Reportedly lacks integrity and morality in church and business matters.

United Methodist Church District Superintendent. Rev. Cason has a limited corporate, business and legal background. Primarily he is a religious leader. Like Rev. Autry he has a strong sense of right and wrong and reportedly does not want to continue to enable the Bradley administration.

Chairman of the Audit Committee. Unqualified for the position as he has no financial, business or legal background or experience that we can determine. CME minister. Reportedly a man of integrity. Reportedly has voted with the Bradley faction of the Board. Under the influence of Bishop Carter.

Relatively new board member. Reportedly recruited to the Board by Brandon P. Brown. Works for BET and has the title of Vice President for Business Operations. Not known what she thinks of the Bradley administration. Since Bradley has hand picked all board members in the last two years under the chairmanship of Dr. Silas Norman it is a better than even bet that she is a Bradley supporter.

Board Chair. Paine alumnus circa 1950s. Employed by Wayne State University as a medical doctor. Brother of opera singer Jessye Norman. Selected by a faction of the Board to be Chair reportedly after Bradley announced that he could not work with Dr. Louise Rice as the Chairperson of the Board. She was the Chair-elect at the time. Strong Bradley supporter. Weak leader. No business, financial or legal acumen. Does whatever Bradley instructs him to do. Has enabled Bradley to loot the endowment through collateralized loans wherein how the funds were spent is not clear. Other board members have accused him of hording information from board members in order to stifle criticism of the Bradley administration.

CME minister. Outspoken Bradley critic. Reportedly has been threatened with loss of his job in Georgia by Bishop Carter because of a letter he wrote to all board members critical of the Bradley administration.

Long time Board Member. Paine alumna. Former faculty member. Former National Pres. of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. Bradley critic. Previous boardchair-elect and should be board chair currently but for a violation of board policy in 2012. Bradley tried to illegally remove her from the Board at the last board meeting. The attempt failed.

Chairman of the Finance Committee. Paine Graduate circa 1950s. Very vocal Bradley supporter. Reportedly unqualified to hold the position of finance committee chairperson. Often rude, bullying and prone to disrespectful emotional outbursts at other Board Members.

United Methodist Bishop for the Northern Conference of Georgia. No one we spoke to can remember ever seeing him in attendance at a Board meeting. Not known what he thinks of the Bradley administration, if anything.

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7 Comments

I would urge you to update this entire website and especially the Board of Trustees file. Having served on the board for a few years, I can assure you that nothing substantial will change until the entire board is turned over and a new board, unaffiliated with this board, is elected. Unless the board is changed out, Paine faces a serious uphill struggle.

Paine College is in the education business, and as Board members, each of you have the fiduciary responsibility of providing the President with guidance and direction to meet the established short-term and long-term goals of the institution. The President should be presenting to each of you a plan of action to meet the institutional short-term and long-term goals. If these goals are not met, the President ultimately needs to be held accountable. Tasks can be delegated by leaders, but the ultimate responsibility of completing those tasks still remains with the President. Evidently, the high turnover indicates that Dr. Bradley has been able to downward delegate his responsibilities and not be held accountable for the downward spiral of Paine College.

When a new member is brought into the Board, that Trustee should be provided with the requisite information to add value, assess performance and make recommendations accordingly. Each Trustee member should have a copy of the Board’s Policy & Procedures, Board Governance, Dr. Bradley’s contract, shot-term and long-term Board approved plans to meet short-term and long-term goals, and any correspondence from the Department of Education, SACSCOC, auditors, . . . that will impact Paine College. At each Board meeting, the President should be giving you a progress report on meeting the established goals. If you are not provided this information, your ability to provide the President with guidance and direction and assess the President’s performance is severely compromised.

Unfortunately, this information has not been provided to the Paine Board of Trustees. Without this website, the Paine community would not even know who are the Trustee members. This pervasive lack of transperancy at the highest level will lead to the ultimate demise of Paine College. The leadership has established a culture that enables secrecy, no accountability and intimidation. Trustee members who have not attended a meeting in years is sorrowful. In essence, this is black on black exploitation that will sadly lead to the legacy of a great institution such as Paine College to its eventual demise, and best case, a shadow of its former self. My prayer is that each of you will have the courage to ask for this information, and more importantly, bring in new leadership. Six years is adequate time for any leader to prove themselves, and in any corporate environment, Dr. Bradley would have been dismissed years ago. This will give you as leaders time to reinvent the leadership structure at Paine College and bring in leadership that is highly competenet and cares.

The concerned HBCU Advocate effectually expressed the concerns of ninety percent of the Augusta Chapter of The National Paine College Alumni Association. The website is informative ; the authors appear to be experts in journalism, and provide FACTS that otherwise would be kept concealed.

I have high respect for the Paine College Alums..I am a graduate of Knoxville College and we face the EXACT “word for word” issues..no difference at all..I wish there were ways that we come together as small HBCU’s..oust the Board of Trustees..raise money.. and influence change throughout

Dr. Bradley dismissal is a major step in ‘righting the ship,’ but it is time to take additional corrective action. Without a doubt, there are administrative leadership changes that need to be made, but the next step needs to be on removing Board members who contributed to Bradley’s reign. The leadership deficiency did not stop with Dr. Bradley and needs to be resolved quickly. The initial list of those Board members who need to resign include:

The Board Chair, Dr. Silas Norman, led the charge of those who supported Bradley. He supported, defended, and protected Bradley by not disseminated any SACS, Dept. of Education and other important information to other Board members, running interference with other Board members who expressed any concern about virtually any issue, and somehow, appeared to think that he and Bradley alone could manage Paine College without any insight or contributions from other objective Board members. The SACS findings are primarily attributed to his inability to lead the Board.

Fred Thompson, Chair of the Finance Committee, lacks the Finance acumen to even be on the Finance Committee, but Bradley and Norman appointed him to be the Finance Committee Chair. His lack of professional decorum coupled with sub-par knowledge of higher education finance issues was an embarrassment to the Board. The only reason he was a Board member was to vote favorably for Bradley.

David Peterson should be immediately dismissed by the Board. He has not attended a Board meeting for multiple years, and yet, he is still on the Board. I understand that he has been battling a longstanding illness, which is even more of a reason to step down.

Bishop Carter’s should have already resigned. Please refer to the Integrity section on this website for the vividly described details.

Once these resignations/dismissals are accepted/ made, the Board governance and policies need to be revised and followed. What occurred during Bradley’s reign cannot be repeated. Newly appointed and dismissed Board members should be communicated to the Paine College community via the website, and the current Board of Trustee members and their credentials should be proudly displayed on the Paine College website.